How Chicago Became The Quintessential Modern City

By Sponsor in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 6, 2016 5:00AM

Chicago has attracted the gaze of journalists, novelists, essayists, and scholars as much as any city in the nation. And, yet, few historians have attempted big-picture narratives of the city’s transformation over the twentieth century.

Chicago on the Make traces the evolution of the city’s politics, culture, and economy as it grew from an unruly tangle of rail yards, slaughterhouses, factories, tenement houses, and fiercely defended ethnic neighborhoods into a truly global urban center.

Reinterpreting the familiar narrative that Chicago’s autocratic machine politics shaped its institutions and public life, acclaimed historian Andrew J. Diamond demonstrates how the grassroots politics of race crippled progressive forces and enabled an alliance of downtown business interests to promote a neoliberal agenda that created the stark inequalities that ravage the city today. 

Chicagoist readers save 30% on this book. Redeem here with promo code 17M6662.

Author Andrew J. Diamond will be speaking at the following events throughout the city:

Tuesday, November 7
6-7pm
Chicago Public Library: Harold Washington Library Center
Free and open to the public
Check the event page for more details

Wednesday, November 8
6-7:30pm
Newberry Research Library
Free and open to the public
Check the event page for more details

Thursday, November 9
5:45-8pm
Chicago History Museum
$25, price includes dinner and parking
Check the event page for more details

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